


Jealousy Will Get You Everywhere

by Alizon, Kahani



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alizon/pseuds/Alizon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahani/pseuds/Kahani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England has taken up with Prussia. It's up to America to save him from that Commie-Nazi's evil wiles with the power of true love. And shouting. And public humiliation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jealousy Will Get You Everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was largely written during the summer of 2012, hence the World Meetings revolving around the European financial crisis and the 2012 Olympics.

"Can you at least try to pay attention? You're the one who's supposed to be hosting this meeting."  
  
America sat up straighter, and put on an alert, enthusiastic smile. "I am! Paying attention. We were talking about how all you guys' banks suck and the European Union was a terrible idea from a financial standpoint."  
  
Germany's eyes narrowed. "It is not a terrible idea, and European banks do not 'suck.'" You could actually hear the air quotes around 'suck.' "There is a crisis of confidence in the banking system that…" blah, blah, Fiscal Compact, blah, blah, pensions, blah, blah, boringness.  
  
At least, America thought, no one was blaming him for this particular economic issue. Mostly.  
  
England was still glowering at him, that particular 'I would be disappointed in you, but my opinion of you is already so low that I'm just irked instead,' expression that he always wore at these meetings – at any meetings, really. Or maybe he was glowering at France, who was seated to America's left, but he doubted it.  
  
Actually drumming his fingers on the table while he waited for them to get on to the interesting parts of the agenda, like Iran's nuclear program, would have been rude, so instead he doodled little pictures on his notes. His boss had particularly wanted them to address the Eurozone financial crisis, but there was only so long he could listen to France and Germany bicker about economic growth versus fiscal responsibility before everything they said started to sound the same.  
  
How angry would everyone else be if he knocked on the table and announced that it was time to talk about the Iranian oil embargo now? Probably pretty angry. Damn. Maybe the power transition in Burma? Germany probably didn't have a spreadsheet about that.  
  
As it turned out, he did. Germany had a spreadsheet for everything.  
  
At least he threw out his empty coffee cup before he left, unlike France. And Canada, who usually always cleaned up after himself, but had for some reason left his coffee cup and a scattering of printed handouts strewn his chair.  
  
What had he done to irritate his brother this time?  
  
His boss had enough to worry about at the moment without cleaning up after visiting nations, so America started to automatically gather up sheets of paper, napkins, and empty and half-empty cups as the others filed out.  
  
England lingered behind, frowning at the table, and then reached for one of France's cups, muttering something uncomplimentary about lazy frog bastards with slovenly habits.  
  
"I've got this," America said automatically, reaching out to take the cup from him. "You don't need to supervise me."  
  
England pulled it away, already reaching for another. "Past experience says otherwise," he said.  
  
The mature thing to do would be to be graciously thankful for the help, but England had a way of making it obvious that he was only helping you because you were incapable of doing anything properly by yourself that he'd picked up some time during the 18th century.  
  
Even while insulting him, the old man still managed to look slightly disinterested and more collected than America could even when calm. How did he do that? It was something about the British accent, he thought, or maybe the sweater vests.  
  
The one he had on today was a sort of mossy green color that matched his eyes. It made him look pale, though, which made the freckles across the bridge of his nose stand out.  
  
They were sort of cute, not that America would ever admit that to anyone. If it ever got back to England, and it would, he'd be furious. The British Empire was not cute, and declarations to the contrary had once earned France a black eye.  
  
He'd be cuter if he dropped the supercilious attitude.  
  
"You don't need to help," America repeated, trying not to sound sullen.  
  
England put one of Italy's doodle-covered napkins back down on the table, and took a pointed step back. "The meeting went better than I expected," he said stiffly.  
  
Well, that sounded sincere. "Oh, like this meeting is even important anymore. Russia didn't even come."  
  
England's shoulders stiffened, and he resumed clearing off the table. "Well, it's nice to know whose participation you care about." He crumpled a handful of papers into a ball with jerky, offended little movements.  
  
What had he done _now?_ Russia was the jerk who hadn't even bothered to come. "He as good as announced that the G8 was pointless," America said. "'Domestic responsibilities' my ass."  
  
"France and Germany are still two of the biggest economies in the EU, and with the financial crisis-"  
  
"I'm sick of talking about financial crises," America groaned. Some days, it felt like the only thing other than health care that anyone ever wanted to talk to him about. "Sorry," he added after a moment, when England just glared at him and pointedly didn't mention that it was his own real estate bubble crash that had kicked the entire mess off in the first place. "It's just been a long meeting. You want to go get something to eat?" Food always made him feel better, and given England's cooking, he'd probably had blackened toast and burned oatmeal for breakfast.  
  
England didn't eat enough; he was always too skinny.  
  
England, of course, being England, didn't acknowledge the fact that America had graciously apologized for snapping at him and everything. "At McDonalds?" England asked flatly. "No."  
  
America tossed the last of France's coffee cups into the trash and gave England his most winning smile. "It doesn't have to be McDonalds. There's this great burger chain in DC where they'll give you an entire paper bag full of french fries. And the hamburgers cost six dollars and everything."  
  
England adjusted his cuffs, not even bothering to look up at America. "I think I'll manage to survive missing that experience," he said, and strode toward the door, not looking back.  
  
America let the smile drop off his face. "Fine, then," he muttered. "More fries for me." He hadn't really wanted England to come with him, anyway. He'd just thought the offer would put the old man in a better mood or something. That showed what you got for trying to be nice.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Germany gave France a flat, level stare; that cold, superior look he was so good at. "So, let's start with the way your new boss just lowered your people's retirement age back to sixty again."  
  
Apparently, the required ten minutes of introductory sniping were now over with. After the past two wars, Prussia could understand why his brother was so fond of the whole EU idea, and being West, he of course was determined to make it succeed through sheer force of will, if necessary. Personally, though, Prussia often found himself missing the days when you could solve economic disputes by declaring war on people. He missed them the most whenever France and Germany got a chance to go at each other without anyone's bosses or people around to require them to play nice and cooperate.  
  
The best way to win an argument with France was to punch him until he agreed to do what you wanted. It usually didn't take very long.  
  
France sniffed, somehow managing to look down his nose at Germany despite being several inches shorter. "Some of us believe in allowing our citizens to enjoy a well-deserved retirement."  
  
Germany's face did that 'I've bitten into something sour' thing. "My government is considering raising ours to sixty-seven. How are you planning to pay for the decrease? Or should I even ask; we already know we'll be paying for it." He indicated himself and Prussia.  
  
"Why, does it interfere with your plans to bail your lover out?" France laid a hand over his heart, gazing at Germany with wide eyes that were probably supposed to look awed. "You're so romantic, Germany."  
  
Nobody could be a bigger bitch than France when he put his mind to it, not even Austria at his most superior.  
  
Prussia abandoned his spot leaning in the doorway and sat down on the couch beside Germany. He leaned back, stretching his arms out along the back of the couch, and propped his feet up on Germany's coffee table, careful to position them just right in order to keep the soles of his boots from scuffing the polished wood. "Didn't you guys go over this at America's G8 meeting?" he asked. He hadn't had to go – a country only needed one nation to represent it at a meeting, unless it was the endless boredom of EU committee meetings, thanks to his brother's realization that having two of them allowed "Germany" to be on twice as many committees.  
  
Germany didn't even look at him; he was glowering at where France lounged in one of the arm chairs, his shirt open at the neck and one leg draped over the chair arm.  
  
"Is there even a point to a super-special elite economic superpowers group that doesn't have China in it?" Prussia went on. Still, no one was looking at him. "Tell me somebody made Italy cry; meetings are always more fun when you punch people." Shit, with his luck, someone _had_ made Italy cry, and it had been France.  
  
That did it, though whether it was the mention of Italy, or the implication that his brother would ever let his self-control slip to such a degree in public, he wasn't sure. "I haven't punched anyone at a diplomatic meeting in decades," Germany said primly.  
  
"I know." Unfortunately. It was always a treat seeing Germany unleash his temper on someone, but he'd gotten much better at keeping a grip on it over the years.  
  
"You once tried to throttle me and told me you'd cut my heart out and eat it," France said.  
  
Prussia snorted. "That was me, and don't be so melodramatic. I barely touched you. And I said the heart thing to Austria at a world cup match, not you."  
  
Germany straightened his already ramrod-straight spine a little further and looked pointedly at Prussia's boots. "Austria's terrible football team has nothing to do with the stability of the euro."  
  
Well, they were back on topic, at least. Really, West ought to be thanking him for managing this meeting. "Is it too late to either leave the EU or kick Greece out?"  
  
"Yes," Germany and France said in unison, then proceed to glare at each other some more.  
  
Further attempts to distract the two of them got nowhere, and Prussia resigned himself to an endless evening of listening to France and Germany bitch at each other about the euro, whose ideas for safeguarding it were doomed to disaster, and whose fault it was that they were in this situation in the first place. After an hour of that, it went downhill into a fight about whose fault every bad thing that had happened in Europe over the past century was, which was depressingly par for the course.  
  
From there, it was only a short, idiotic step to "whose fault it was that poor Prussia had to spend years being oppressed and communist, which we could just ask Prussia about, but won't because that wouldn't involve posturing at each other."  
  
This, Prussia decided, was the sort of discussion that required alcohol.  
  
When he got back from the kitchen, beer in hand – plus one each for Germany and France, just to be polite – the "poor pitiful Prussia" conversation had not magically gone away.  
  
" … was made to suffer at Russia's terrible debauched whims," France was saying, stabbing an accusing finger at Germany, "and not the fun kind of debauched whims, either."  
  
The way he said it made it sound like Prussia had spent the entire cold war chained to Russia's bedpost, naked. Like he was some poor, innocent victim who'd never given as good as he got or occasionally agreed with Russia. Yeah, some of the agreeing had been because Russia could be terrifying when you made him angry, but a few of his "suggestions" for how Prussia's territory should be run hadn't been completely terrible. Or at least, not the kind of terrible France's "debauched whims" implied.  
  
Prussia slammed France and Germany's beers down on the coffee table, not bothering to be careful of the finish. "What the hell are you even talking about? He had Lithuania for that."  
  
Germany looked pained, though whether it was because of the joke or because of the coffee table, Prussia couldn't tell. Bringing up the war upset him.  
  
He was still young, even though he acted like he was the older brother half the time. He was too young to remember the middle ages, and didn't remember the Napoleonic wars, either. France, on the other hand, had been through as many of them as Prussia, and was used to fighting them, making new alliances, fighting new wars, and casually tossing people's losses back in their faces and flaunting your own victories over drinks.  
  
France stood, placing a hand on Prussia's shoulder. "Pauvre petit," he said soothingly, "you are so traumatized that you do not even remember the trauma."  
  
He liked France, Prussia reminded himself. Therefore, he probably shouldn't beat his face in, no matter how clearly he could picture that sorrowful frown turning into a bloody grimace after he smashed France's lips into his teeth.  
  
France would never let him forget it, and if he got France's blood on the carpet, neither would West.  
  
"Oh, fuck off," he snapped instead, jerking away from France's hand. The fake-concerned look on France's face when he did so, adopted entirely for the sake of winding up Germany, was a lot less satisfying than hearing him wail curses and bitch at Prussia not to break his precious face. "I'm leaving. You two can just skip straight ahead to the part where you roll around on the floor punching each other and then make out."  
  
Germany actually growled, a vein in his forehead throbbing. Prussia imagined he could he hear his brother's teeth grinding with the effort to be mature and dignified and not start shouting at both of them.  
  
France drew back, one hand pressed dramatically to his chest. "With a boche? I have standards!"  
  
That was almost funny. "Standards?" Prussia sneered. "You'd fuck a goat."  
  
He turned on his heel and left, not bothering to look back to see France's reaction, or West's struggle between irritation, worry, and disappointment.  
  
France's offended shout followed him out into the street. "But not if that goat were German!"  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
As usual, the worst of the mess was in the kitchen. Something had got into the tea canister again. And into the milk. And into the marmalade jar he'd short-sightedly left on the kitchen counter.  
  
One of the pixies, probably. Likely several of them; opening the marmalade jar would have taken teamwork.  
  
England sighed, and, carefully _not_ cursing faeries of all sort under his breath, went to fetch a dustpan and a wet sponge. Speaking ill of the fair folk was asking for trouble.  
  
They didn't like it when he left for more than a few days at a time.  
  
The smaller faeries were creatures of the moment, perpetually immature and self-centered.  
  
Like certain nations he could think of.  
  
By the time the kitchen was clean, he could see small flashes of movement out of the corner of his eye. If they'd been elves, he would have wondered if they'd sensed his irritation and were hiding from him, but pixies being pixies, they were more likely playing some kind of game.  
  
England ostentatiously ignored them as he put the cleaning supplies away, then made himself a cup of tea from the tea leaves that hadn't been spilled on the floor and took it into the library.  
  
He had work to catch up on - he always did, when he'd been away - and he probably ought to talk to his boss about next year's G8 meeting, since it would be his turn to host it, or about the Olympics, or any one of a dozen other things. Instead, he breathed in the citrus-scented aroma of the tea and remembered the forlorn look on America's face when he'd said that Russia hadn't come.  
  
They ought to kick Russia out and invite China or India to replace him, England thought, with only a little vindictiveness. The cold war was over, the Soviet Union was long gone, and the world had a new set of superpowers. It wasn't all about America and Russia anymore.  
  
Except, apparently, in America's head, where it was always going to be about him and Russia, or China, or 'terrorism.' He always wanted to be the hero, _had_ to be the hero, and a hero was no good without a villain to fight. To measure himself against.  
  
Once, for a little while, that had been England. But he hadn't been the center of America's world for a very long time, and he had no desire to go back being America's great enemy to freedom. Facing him across a battle field had been a miserable experience.  
  
He could still remember the shock of that final, humiliating battle, of the cold, determined look on America's face as he stared down at where England knelt in the mud. There'd been no respect there anymore, and that had stung even more than the absence of the affection he'd already lost years before that.  
  
The respect had come back, at some point. Maybe during the Great War, maybe at some point during the Blitz - he couldn't remember exactly when that disappointment and blame had finally vanished. But America never looked at him again the way he had before his revolution, as if England were the best and most important thing in his life.  
  
Being an old ally and former mentor was better than being the target of whatever bizarre obsession America and Russia had for one another. It was.  
  
England drained his teacup and poured himself another, though it was no longer as hot as he liked it. He went to the sideboard and added a dash of brandy to it, then determinedly sat back down with an old grimoire and prepared to have a nice evening off.  
  
He'd just gotten back from a week's worth of listening to France and Germany bicker about the falling euro while America pretended to be interested and Italy pretended he wasn't about to cry. He'd bloody earned one.  
  
Twenty cramped, handwritten pages and two cups of brandy-laced tea later, someone pounded heavily on his door.  
  
For one ridiculous moment, he thought it was America, and something twisted in his stomach. He realized that America would never have bothered to knock just as his unwanted visitor yelled "Hallo? England? I know you're home; your lights are on!" in a pronounced German accent.  
  
What the hell was Prussia doing here at eight o' clock at night?  
  
England marked his place with a slip of paper and set the grimoire aside, then grudgingly got up from his comfortable armchair to go answer the door.  
  
He opened it to find Prussia lounging against the doorframe, smirking obnoxiously down at him. Somehow, Prussia always managed to smirk down at him, even though he was only a couple inches taller than England was. He could even give the impression of smirking down at Germany, despite being half a head shorter.  
  
Before England could ask him what he wanted and what it would take to make him go away, Prussia gave him a wide, cheerful smile and announced, "England! Took you long enough to answer the door. Want to go get drunk and talk about how much you hate France?"  
  
"… and then he grabbed my arse," England found himself saying, sometime later. "And told me that it was cute enough to almost make up for being a skinny a little thing with giant eyebrows. And winked at me, the fucking bastard."  
  
"He called me a darling little rabbit once."  
  
"You do look sort of like a rabbit, really."  
  
"And he's so fucking condescending. 'You're so traumatized that you don't even remember the trauma,'" this in a high-pitched sing-song that sounded nothing like France. "Oh yeah, who's kicked your ass in every war ever?"  
  
"You lost the last one."  
  
"Not to him."  
  
One of the nice things about Prussia was that he rarely held things like defeating him on the battlefield against one. Compared to England's usual drinking companions, who liked to go on and on about the terrible unfairness of Culloden or Agincourt after a few pints, it was a refreshing change.  
  
"And I didn't spend forty years as Russia's abused little sex slave afterwards, either. Where do you guys get this shit? Did America spend the entire cold war telling you his fantasies about Russia doing terrible sexy things to the whole Eastern Bloc?"  
  
"Russia," England spat. He took a long swallow of beer to wash the name out of his mouth. "Don't talk to me about Russia."  
  
"What's he done to you?"  
  
"He prances around with his ugly scarves and giant nuclear arsenal and even twenty years after the end of the damn cold war, America's still all 'Russia this' and 'Russia that,' and 'Russia didn't come to my meeting.'"  
  
Prussia actually smiled, a creepy little grin that would have gone much better with a military officer's uniform than a ratty band t-shirt. "It was a very nice nuclear arsenal. Even if he stole the entire idea of ballistic missiles from me." America liked bombs because they exploded. Russia liked them because they intimidated people. Prussia liked bombs because they killed things.  
  
In this particular case, mostly England's things. "Give me another half-century before you expect me to start patting you on the back over the V-2."  
  
"You gave as good as you got." Prussia saluted England with his half-empty glass, then started snickering, trying unsuccessfully to muffle the noise with his hand. "Unlike France. I still have the burn scars from Dresden. Ask nice, and maybe I'll show them to you sometime."  
  
"I can hardly wait," England scoffed.  
  
"Oh, come on, you know you want to see." Prussia actually waggled his eyebrows. "Scars turn you on."  
  
Of all the- "They do not."  
  
"They do if you helped put them there."  
  
"You're confusing me with you."  
  
"Spain talks a lot when he's been drinking," Prussia said. He drained the rest of his glass and slammed it down on the table, then started eying the remains of England's drink speculatively.  
  
England pulled the glass closer to his chest, his cheeks and ears suddenly hot even though Prussia was almost certainly making things up. "Spain should learn to keep his sodding mouth shut. Do the three of you sit around and compare notes on me?"  
  
Knowing France, they probably did.  
  
"He said you made him give you a blow job on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. You held out on me in the eighteenth century."  
  
England felt his face heat even further. "That was a long time ago." Before he'd become a gentleman, when he'd still been young enough and cocky enough to gloat over a defeated enemy. And gloating over Spain's defeats had been so very satisfying, in more ways than one.  
  
Spain had changed since then, too. Once, he'd given as good as he got. Forcing him to his knees these days wouldn't be the thrill it had been then, when he'd been England's biggest and most dangerous rival.  
  
The worst thing about America's obsession with Russia was that he understood it all too well. England knew what that kind of struggle for supremacy was like, knew how it felt to want to dominate and master your enemy in every way possible. Something about Spain and France brought out the worst in him, things he really ought to be more ashamed of than he was.  
  
America probably fantasized about Russia like that – on his knees, with his hands tied behind him by that omnipresent scarf. He'd imagine standing over him, probably in a cowboy hat or a leather flying jacket or some other suitably macho outfit, and pressing his sword to Russia's chin and ordering him to put his lying Papist mouth to better use.  
  
Well, gun, and communist mouth. Russia wasn't Spain.  
  
"You're blushing," Prussia crowed. "The great British Empire is blushing."  
  
England drained the rest of his glass without pausing to breathe and set it back down on the table hard enough to make the rest of the empty pint glasses rattle. "Right. Let's see them."  
  
Prussia blinked at him. He really did look like a rabbit, with those red eyes and nearly-invisible white eyelashes. "See what?"  
  
Still, he wasn't bad looking, especially with the rosy flush of alcohol on his face and his collar undone. Not as broad-shouldered and well-muscled as, well, some nations, but unlike those nations, he was here across the table from England right now, good humored and interested and a little drunk.  
  
That was only fair. England was a little drunk, too.  
  
"The scars. Let's have a look at them. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Canada at hockey games was always slightly disconcerting. Okay, more like really jarring and mildly terrifying, not that America would ever admit that, because heroes never admitted to being scared even when they were.  
  
It always started normally, with Canada smiling and cheerful and trying to pay the concession stands guy with Canadian quarters, and then by halfway through the game he was on his feet screaming Canadian profanity (which was the same as American profanity, but with more "eh"s in it) at the opposing team's players, his own team's players, and the referees.  
  
And he sulked when his team lost, regardless of how much he denied it. This time, however, he'd managed to confine himself to some sneering about 'sunbelt hockey teams' and a fake-polite 'whatever you say' when America informed him that the Rangers couldn't be any such thing because New York wasn't in the sunbelt.  
  
"You know what always cheers me up when _my_ sports team loses?" America asked brightly. Canada didn't ask what, still politely sulking, so America went on as if he had. "Food!"  
  
"Didn't you get enough to eat at the game?"  
  
At the time, yes, but that had been during the first half, and that was ages ago. "Come on. My treat."  
  
"Not McDonalds."  
  
Why did everyone always say that? "I do eat at other places, you know. Plus, this is New York. We have to get pizza."  
  
Canada put up a brief pretense of reluctance, but it was easy to see through. He got hungry just as often as America did, and could eat just as much. Plus, he put gravy and cheese on french fries, which meant that he had no grounds whatsoever to call someone else's fast food unhealthy.  
  
The best part about eating out in his own country was that America knew all the best places to find everything. McDonalds was great and all, but mostly what was great about it was that it was a good place to get food you liked when you were in France or England or Japan and all the restaurants had weird, indecipherable menus in French.  
  
The best place to find pizza in New York City was not actually Grimaldi's - because that was all the way over in Brooklyn - but a tiny restaurant on the Lower East Side where they made their own mozzarella and had these baskets of deep-fried pieces of it that they'd bring to your table.  
  
Canada ate most of them, proving that he'd been lying about not being hungry. Now, he was staring at the very last piece with the air of someone who wanted more, but didn't want to be rude and take the last one.  
  
"Go ahead and eat it," America said generously, and took a bite of his pizza. The cheese was hot enough to almost burn the roof of his mouth, just the way it should be.  
  
"I still think that last goal was-"  
  
"Amazing," America interrupted, cutting off the explanation of how the play had been sloppy and somehow inferior to when Canada's team did it for the fourth time. "It was genius on ice, and you're just jealous."  
  
"Now you sound like Prussia."  
  
"If I was Prussia, I would have said," he put on his best WWII movie villain accent, "'I, the awesome Prussia, think it vos genius on ice.'"  
  
Canada snickered, and America automatically made a note to remind him of it the next time he tried to tell America to be culturally sensitive.  
  
"Is he still showing up randomly at your place to watch hockey with you?" He wasn't sure if they even had hockey in Europe, and had occasionally suspected that 'watching hockey with Prussia' was some kind of euphemism, though for what, he wasn't sure. Not sex – Canada had once said that Prussia sort of reminded him of America, though America couldn't see any resemblance – or at least, he hoped not sex.  
  
"No, he's mostly hanging out with England these days." Canada looked down at his empty plate, then added a weirdly hesitant, "You're okay with that, right?"  
  
"Uh, yeah?" England could hang out with whoever he wanted. It wasn't like America cared.  
  
Canada smiled, looking relieved, which was even weirder. "Oh, good."  
  
Maybe having so much of your nation above the arctic circle did things to you. America turned his attention back to his pizza, because the crust had little blacked spots on the bottom and the edges of the basil leaves were all crispy and if he didn't finish it soon it would get cold and the cheese would congeal.  
  
"… so much better than when it's France, because now when he gets drunk and starts fistfights over soccer games, Germany can go bail them out."  
  
"When it's France what?" he asked, mouth full of pizza.  
  
"You know." Canada made vague circular hand gesture. "When he and France are, um, on again."  
  
America choked, then coughed, swallowed the mouthful he'd nearly spit out onto the table, and grabbed for his coke, still coughing.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
"England and Prussia are _having sex_?"  
  
"You didn't know?" Canada stared at him. "How could you not know? France has been telling everyone."  
  
Like he listened to that. If he paid attention to everything France said about England, he'd end up either dying of embarrassment or punching him in defense of England's honor or something. "France says a lot of things about England and sex and most of them are made up." That wasn't the important part here, though. He had to stay on topic, America reminded himself. "Why Prussia? He's a communist!"  
  
Canada actually snorted. "Oh, come on."  
  
"You're laughing at me!" Couldn't he see how terrible this was? England deserved better than some smarmy ex-country who'd been dissolved for committing war crimes. If he was that lonely… America shouldn't have let England shrug him off so easily after all those meetings. He should have just dragged him out to dinner and made him socialize with people.  
  
England shouldn't need anyone else, not when he had America.  
  
"Yes," Canada said. "Yes, I am. God, you're oblivious."  
  
"Seriously, he's a communist. Or, he used to be, and I bet he still is, secretly. And his nose is all pointy and his ears stick out." America wracked his brain to try and come up with another piece of evidence for Prussia's unsuitability that didn't involve Nazis or Hitler. "And he's short!"  
  
"Yes, but he's better than France, because he doesn't try to tell me all the romantic details."  
  
Actually, in America's experience, they were usually lurid, vaguely pornographic details, but France always called them "romantic." And they had to be made up – no one was that flexible, and England would never want to do _that_ with France's cooking utensils. Or with archery equipment. Or on top of a pile of books in his library – England was really fussy about his books.  
  
"He's all wrong for England."  
  
"Well, he's never going to love England as much as he loves himself, but that's not actually our business." Canada reached for his last slice of pizza, taking a big, 'shut up, America, I'm finished talking with you' bite.  
  
"Yes it is!" America insisted. "The old man's our ally. We have a special relationship. You were part of that commonwealth thing with him for ages."  
  
Canada swallowed, and reached for his water glass. "I'm still part of it."  
  
"See? So you should do it."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
Wasn't it obvious? "Tell England that he can't date Prussia. He won't listen to me; he never does."  
  
"I can't imagine why not."  
  
America decided to rise above his brother's pettiness and overlook the sarcasm. "So you'll talk to him?"  
  
"No," Canada said flatly. "If it makes England happy, he can see whoever he wants. You're the one who's jealous. You talk to him. Or don't, because this is stupid and you'll just make him mad, and then he'll say something bitchy to you and you'll only end up feeling worse."  
  
"This isn't about me," America said, offended. "This is about England's decisions and how he's making them wrong."  
  
"So, where do you want to go for vacation next month? And you can't say Ellesmere Island to look for tetrapods again, because it's my turn to pick and I want to go somewhere warm."  
  
America waved the question away. "We can decide that later. Right now, you're going to help me strategize."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
There was a flicker of light in the corner of his vision, and England turned his head slightly to see two small faces staring at him from the window box outside his bedroom window. "Must you watch?   It's very off-putting."  
  
"Watch what?" Prussia mumbled semi-intelligibly.  "Even I can't see anything from this angle."  
  
"Not you."  England laced his fingers into Prussia's hair and tugged him upright, putting the other man's body between himself and the distractions in the window.  "It's the damned faeries.  They're inquisitive by nature."  
  
"Can you blame them?"  Prussia cocked an eyebrow, gesturing to himself.  "How often do they get to see the magnificent Prussia in all his glory?"  
  
"Next time," England muttered, "we're going to your place.  You're always going on about how German beer is better anyway."  
  
"Better being watched by faeries than listening to West and Italy."  
  
"They fight?  I didn't think Italy had the stones for that."  
  
"Oh, no, not fighting."  Prussia leaned back, pressing the back of his hand against his forehead.  "Oh, Veneziano, you _beast_ ," he gasped, in a high-pitched, girly voice with a parody of a Bavarian accent.  "Not the riding crop!"  He flopped back against the bed, abandoning the fainting-couch pose, and went on in normal tones, "And it's my riding crop, too, and he never even asks if he can borrow it."  
  
England chose to ignore this entire little speech.  Thinking of Germany while in bed with someone would be an unwelcome distraction.  England was done with the tall, muscle-bound type, whether it was Germany or… anyone else.  
  
"If next time is here," he said, as if the topic of Germany and Italy had never come up, "you're bringing some alcohol instead of just drinking all of mine."  
  
"I pay for it," Prussia protested.  "I pay for it very thoroughly."  
  
"I'm not France.  I don't take payment in that particular currency.  And it's hardly a sacrifice on your part."  
  
"No," Prussia agreed smugly.  "I don't make sacrifices."  He pulled England down on top of him for a long, thorough kiss, punctuated with sharp little bites at his bottom lip.  
  
The first time they'd done this had been some time during the 1700s, fresh off the battlefield from some war or other – maybe in France or Belgium, maybe in Spain somewhere.  Prussia had been better than England had expected for someone with such a strict religious upbringing, not to mention such a massive ego.  
  
Not quite as good as France, who always seemed to know exactly what England wished he didn't want, but he'd never admit that even under torture.  The bastard did enough bragging already.  
  
It had been a hundred years give or take since the last time, but they'd fallen right back into the pattern of things just as if they hadn't fought two massive total wars against one another in the interim.  
  
It was friendly, familiar, and unlike with France, didn't have to mean anything.  Nobody would ever really matter to Prussia but his brother and himself, and possibly Hungary and Austria.  He didn't want anything from England, which was rare for any nation.  
  
So if England occasionally closed his eyes and imagined he were someone else, it didn't matter.  
  
"America," England gasped, his fingers digging tightly into upper arms that weren't quite muscular enough, leaving red marks against skin just a little too pale.  "A-mer-" the name trailed off into a choked groan as he came, and then Prussia was shoving him away and scowling at him.  
  
"What-" England started.  
  
Prussia punched him in the face.  
  
It hadn't been a serious punch, he reflected, as he shook his head slightly and raised his hand to check if his nose was bleeding – it wasn't.  A serious punch would have knocked him off the bed.  "What the fucking hell was that for?"  
  
"You called me America," Prussia said flatly.  "I have a name, England, and that's not it.   The _glorious_ kingdom of Prussia.  Pruβen.  Not your loud-mouthed ex-colony.  You could at least pretend you're actually paying attention to me."  
  
Oh for Christ's sake.  "If I'd hit you every time you called me Fritz, you'd have spent the entire eighteenth century with two black eyes."  
  
Prussia folded his arms across his chest and glared at England; it might have had more impact if he hadn't been naked.  "Being called by Old Fritz's name is an honor, nothing at all like being mistaken for a loud, burger-eating moron."  
  
"You nearly broke my nose," England complained.  It was still throbbing, and his eyes were tearing up annoyingly.  He resisted the urge to rub at it; it wouldn't help, and Prussia would accuse him of being a wuss.  
  
"It would have improved it.  Your face could use some manly character.  It's all girly except for the eyebrows."  
  
For a moment, England considered punching Prussia right back, and not bothering to pull the punch.  Then he remembered something Italy had said to him about both German brothers' tastes in reading material.  "That was very rude of you," he said.  "I think you need to be punished."  
  


* * *

  
  
  
"No one can read this."  Prussia held the print-out a little closer to his face and squinted at it; the letters remained tiny and blurry, the sort of fine print people probably went blind from reading.  "What is this, six point font?"  
  
"People who are too vain to wear glasses deserve the headaches they get," Austria stated blandly.  
  
Prussia made a rude gesture at him and didn't bother to reply.  
  
France and Germany were busily repeated the exact same argument about retirement ages and banking regulations that they'd already had in his and Germany's living room three weeks ago, with occasional interjections from Spain and the Netherlands that both of them ignored.  
  
England had jumped right in to the banking discussion with all the smugness of a nation who had never converted to the euro, and the authority of someone who had a great many opinions about banks.  
  
If he put his head down on the table and took a nap, the way Greece was doing, it would be a toss-up whether Germany, Hungary, or England smacked him awake first.  
  
England, he had recently learned, could be very creative when you got him angry.  
  
He probably ought to feel guilty, Prussia reflected, about sleeping with England when the other nation was so clearly hung up on America, but given that America was too self-absorbed and oblivious to figure that fact out in a million years, it wasn't as if he were getting in the way of anything.  
  
England was so obviously lonely, all by himself with only his possibly-imaginary fairies for company, and Prussia had no one else to bestow all his extensive and considerable skills and awesome physique on at the moment.  And England had skilled hands and a way of snapping out orders when you got him sufficiently irritated that more than made up for the time he'd tried to use Prussia's ears as handles during a blowjob – that he hadn't made him deliver while on his knees with a sword at his throat, more's the pity – and almost made up for the very obvious way he occasionally closed his eyes and pretended Prussia was someone larger, louder, and more nearsighted.  
  
He might occasionally – very occasionally – imagine that England's clever fingers were pianist's hands instead of a magician's, or wish for a moment or two that the other nation had long, flower-scented hair to wrap around his fingers, but Prussia was too much of a gentleman to ever make those moments blindingly, insultingly obvious.  
  
"Encouraging austerity might be a good principle in theory," Spain was saying, "but in actual practice it isn't because blah blah I hate logic."  
  
Then Romano actually pulled his face out of the magazine he was blatantly reading long enough to say something.  Prussia didn't bother to pay attention; half the economic situation was Romano and Italy's fault to begin with, and he was pretty sure which of the two brothers bore most of the blame for that.  Or, okay, maybe not, but it was difficult to actually blame Italy for anything when he always looked so sincerely sorry for screwing up.  
  
Romano rarely put forth the effort to even pretend to be sorry.  He generally dealt with the fact that he for all intents and purposes had two sets of bosses, official and "unofficial," by doing as little as possible.  
  
"I have an idea," Prussia called out, not bothering to wait for France to finish speaking.  
  
"Ooh, let's listen to little Potato Bastard's idea," Romano said.  "Does it involve waiting in line to get your weekly ration of potatoes?"  
  
"Fuck you, potatoes are awesome," Prussia returned, and resisted making a rude gesture at him mostly because Spain was watching.  Getting into a good argument of his own would be a lot more interesting than listening to everyone else argue, and Romano was always up for one.  
  
Saying 'my brother is sleeping with yours, haha, what are you going to do about it' would be too obvious; he needed something more subtle.  "They're delicious with pasta."  
  
Romano's snarl of rage was cut off by a loud bang as the door flew open so hard that it slammed into the wall.  
  
Prussia didn't jump, and most certainly didn't reach for a sword or gun that wasn't there.  
  
"England," a painfully familiar voice shouted, "I'm here for your own good!"  
  
Everyone gaped at the doorway, where America stood with his legs firmly planted, his chin up, and one hand pointing accusingly at England like a character in a particularly melodramatic silent film.  
  
"You-" England sputtered.  "What- "  
  
He was kind of cute when he was speechless with rage, eyebrows notwithstanding.  It reminded Prussia a little of Austria, except with more flushing red and bits of choked-off obscenities and less piano-keyboard-pounding.  
  
Germany didn't even look up from his notes.  "This is the EU meeting, America," he said, with that perfect cool calm that always made Prussia proud, but which was incredibly annoying when it was directed at you  "The NATO meeting is next month."  
  
"This is too important to wait until then!" America turned back to England, and stared at him with big, imploring eyes that were vaguely reminiscent of Germany's dogs.  "England, Canada and I are very concerned." So concerned about whatever it was, apparently, that he hadn't bothered to come, unless… Prussia squinted carefully at the still-open doorway behind America, but nope, no Canada.  
  
"You're making a terrible mistake," America went on.  "I know you're lonely, and I know how attractive their evil whiles can seem, but-"  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?" England interrupted.  It was a good question.  Evil whiles?  Really?  
  
America tilted his chin up again, his face a study in determination. "I'm talking about you.  You and that," he waved one hand wildly at Prussia, "that Commie-Nazi!"  
  
Wait, _he_ was the one who had evil whiles?  That was kind of flattering, except for the part where-  "You can't be a communist and a Nazi at the same time.  They're opposite things."  Germany was on his feet, his face flushing red, and Prussia quickly added, "Opposite bad things, that we don't make jokes about at these meetings."  
  
"No, Germany!" Italy wailed, clinging to Germany's arm.  "Don't kill him!"  
  
At least they knew what America's terribly serious problem that couldn't wait until the NATO meeting was now, though.  Most of what America said about communists could be replaced by the words "I resent the fact that thinking about Russia gives me a hard on" without losing any meaning, and apparently if he wasn't allowed to 'become one' with Russia, nobody else was allowed to have sex with former Eastern Bloc nations, either.  Prussia smirked at him, slouching down a little further in his chair, and said, "Just because China is cockblocking you doesn't mean that no one who was behind the iron curtain can ever have sex again."  
  
"Let go of me," Germany was saying, trying futilely to dislodge Italy from around his torso.  "I'm not going to kill him; I'm going to _throw him out_."  
  
Everyone in the room was staring at Prussia, America, and England, enthralled.  France was laughing so hard that he'd actually laid his head down on the table, gasping for breath in between hysterical howls.  
  
Of course, it was only natural for everyone to be fascinated by his sex life – and only natural for France to hoot with obnoxious laughter about it, since that's what he always did when he wasn't giving 'brotherly' advice – but the huge spectacle America was making of himself didn't hurt.  
  
"This has nothing to do with China, you jerk," America shouted.  His face had flushed red, and his glasses were slipping down his nose.  He pushed them back up with a jerky little motion and glared harder, as if his bad vision were entirely Prussia's fault for having at one point been communist.  
  
This was amazing.  He should have started sleeping with England again ages ago.  Prussia slouched down a little further in his chair and tried not to grin too obviously or too smugly.  
  
Across the table, England had buried his face in his hands and was muttering unintelligible in Old English; the only words Prussia could make out clearly were the obscenities.  
  
This was probably just a little bit embarrassing for him.  England had always been a private person, and although there were far, far worse nations than Prussia to have everyone know you were sleeping with…  Maybe he ought to stop egging America on.

In a few minutes.  He'd stop in a few minutes.  
  
France managed to stop laughing long enough to look up and gasp, "Ah, Prusse, I don't think China's the one cockblocking him."  
  
Oh.  He looked back to America, now redder than ever and glaring defensively at everyone, and now that France had pointed it out, it was actually pretty obvious.  In his defense, he had spent decades stuck in the middle of Russia and America's epic dick-measuring contest, and compared to that, whatever America had with England was much more low key.  
  
Low key enough, apparently, that England had had no idea they'd had anything at all, since he'd obviously been using Prussia as a substitute for the nation he really wanted and would probably have gone to America in a heartbeat if he'd known it was an option.  
  
"Wait," Austria said, leaning forward and stabbing one finger at Prussia, jabbing it into his chest hard enough that it might even bruise.  He looked almost as angry as West, for some weird reason.  "How long has this been going on?  How long have you been cheating on us with that, that, _him?_ "  
  
What the hell?  
  
Hungary moved forward a little, pushing Austria back from the table and out of Prussia's personal space with one shove on her hip.   "He was never your boyfriend," she said reasonably.  Or my boyfriend.  Or our boyfriend."  Then she turned to Prussia and folded her arms across her chest.  "How long?"  
  
"What business is it of yours?  Do I ask what you and Specs do together now that you're too busy for me?"  
  
"He doesn't really love you, England!" America cried, as if Prussia weren't in the middle of a personal discussion here.  "You deserve better!"  
  
"There isn't anyone better!" Prussia protested, stung.  He wasn't the one who'd first rejected England and then thrown a temper-tantrum when England tried to move on to someone else. "People beg for the chance to see me naked.  You're just jealous."  
  
America straightened to his full height and titled his chin upwards.  "I'm not jealous.  I'm concerned.  About England's feelings."  
  
England made a strangled sound and looked up from his hands, and the expression in his eyes made Prussia suddenly sympathize with Spain.  Damn, England really had been holding out on him.  If he'd looked that incandescent with fury and had this kind of menacing _presence_ during the 1500s, Spain wasn't quite as much of a wuss as he'd thought.  
  
"Shut up!" England growled.  "If you were really concerned about my feelings, you'd shut up!" He made a sharp hand gesture, and something in Prussia's left ear popped painfully.   
  
America's mouth moved, but no sound came out.  Heh.  Neat trick.  
  
"You're leaving," England said, in a low, firm voice that rivaled Russia at his most terrifying.  
  
America's mouth kept moving soundlessly, clearly shaping the words "You can't tell me what to do."  
  
England took three long strides forward, reached up, and grabbed America by the ear.  Without saying a word, he hauled him to the doorway, yanked the door free from where America's dramatic entrance had embedded the doorknob in the wall, and shoved the other nation out into the hallway.   "Go away and come back later," he said.  "The adults are talking."  Then he slammed the door in America's face.  
  
Greece jerked upright at the sound, blinking and looking around wildly.  "Was that America?  He can't join us; he's not even part of this hemisphere!  Why does he always have to come stick his nose into everything?"  
  
Hungary and Austria were still glaring at Prussia.  So was England.  And Germany.  
  
And he'd thought this meeting was going to be boring.  
  


* * *

After the meeting was over, when America proved thankfully to not be lurking right outside the door waiting to humiliate England further, which had been a serious concern, England made a beeline directly for the nearest bar.  
  
He checked to make certain that France wasn't anywhere within earshot, and ordered himself a drink – in French.  Speaking the local language got you better service, was only polite when he wasn't sure if the bartender even spoke English, and if France ever caught him doing it, he'd never live it down.  
  
He could imagine it now: "You speak French so beautifully when you apply yourself, Angleterre!  It makes your voice sound so much less horrid then when you speak English. You must do it more often."  
  
Fucking bastard.  Of course he wasn't going to show up to crow over England's use of his language – he was likely still too busy laughing until he cried over the public spectacle America had made of them both.  
  
He'd been all but useless for the rest of the EU meeting, periodically looking over at England and bursting into obnoxious little fits of snickering.  Everyone else had at least had the good manners to try to hide the fact that they were all laughing at him.  
  
He'd hardly drunk more than a few sips when someone flung themselves into the seat opposite him, all loud, clomping boots and dramatic, put-upon sighs.  
  
England didn't bother to look up from his drink; only one nation wore ripped jeans and steel-toed boots to EU meetings.  Once upon a time, Prussia had never appeared in public in anything but a uniform – England wasn't sure he'd even owned any other clothes.  Nowadays, he seemed to be in a contest with America to see who could be the most inappropriately casual on official occasions.  
  
"Hungary and Austria are both mad at me, and so is West, as if any of this is in any way my fault."  He stole England's drink, took a sip, and added, "Hungary says she'll castrate me with a dull, rusty sword if I sleep with you again."  
  
England reached across the table, grabbed Prussia's wrist with one hand, and plucked the glass out of his fingers with the other.  It was like babysitting Sealand, honestly.  Then a thought struck him, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he said,  
  
"Tell me you didn't seduce me just to make them jealous."  
  
Prussia actually smiled, looking entirely too pleased with himself.  "That's a good idea," he said.  "I'll have to remember it."  
  
If he started banging his head against the table, he'd just give himself a headache, and he planned to have one when he woke up tomorrow morning as it was.  "Why did I have sex with you?"  
  
"Because you were lonely and easy, and I'm hot."  He said it as if it were obvious.  England supposed it was.  
  
"Right.  That about sums it up, doesn't it?"  
  
Prussia picked up England's half-empty glass and tossed back the rest of its contents in one long swallow, then waved his arm over his head to signal the bartender for another round.  
  
Prussia was paying for this one, England decided.  
  
"Where does Specs get off acting like I was cheating on him?  He spends decades being all 'no, my vital regions, ooh Prussia I hate you,' and Hungary is always busy with him and will only sleep with me when he's not around and suddenly I'm their property?"  
  
Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.  "You know you like it."  
  
"I'm a badass independent kingdom," Prussia said sullenly.  "I'm not anybody's property."  
  
England stopped listening to him, because pointing out that that was no longer true would be pointlessly cruel, and also because he'd been down this road before.  Prussia + alcohol involved three stages.  "I am the most badass amazing nation ever.  I love me.  Let's start a fistfight."  "You guys are the best friends ever.  I love you.  Let's sing."  And the third one, which England had thankfully only witnessed once, "You're the best brother ever, West.  I love you.  Let me cry incoherently into your shoulder and embarrass everyone who's watching."    They were clearly in stage one at the moment.  
  
It must be nice to be so thoroughly immune to embarrassment and humiliation.  He'd gotten the distinct impression that Prussia was proud to have had his sex life discussed at high volume in front of the entire EU.  Meanwhile, England was already wishing that enough alcohol existed to erase the experience from his memory forever, and planning how to avoid France for the next six months.  
  
How could America do that to him?  One would think that, given the spectacular temper-tantrums he threw every time England attempted to give him advice about how to conduct his own life, he might have the courtesy to return the favor and give England the respect and lack of interference he so clearly wanted for himself.  
  
No, stupid question.  He knew exactly how America could do this to him.  Because nothing mattered in America's world but America.  
  
Why did he even _care?_  
  
Because it was America.  
  
"At least you know he's interested in you.  Going by Israel and Russia, I thought that you weren't ball-shrivelingly terrifying enough for him, but it looks like he wants you anyway."  
  
"Well maybe I no longer want him," England snapped.  "And America's not scared of Israel or Russia.  He's not you.  He's just equally thoughtless about other people."  
  
"I'm very thoughtful," Prussia objected, and proceeded to prove this by continuing to complain about the fact that two people he was attracted to appeared to want to have sex with him.  Possibly at the same time.  
  
America, on the other hand, was almost certainly not "interested" in England.  He was just being a dog in the manger.  America couldn't stand not being the center of attention – he never had – and even if they weren't as close as they'd once been, he still cared about England's friendship and attention.  And therefore couldn't stand seeing England pay too much attention to anyone else.  
  
"... and she's always punching me and hitting me with that frying pan, and not in the sexy way..."  
  
America had always complained about that, even as a child.  "You're always gone, England.  You're always leaving!"  Once, he'd secretly kicked holes in the hull of England's ship to try and prevent him from sailing away, then claimed that they must have been made by ghosts.  Ghosts that planned to eat America if England didn't stay.  
  
He'd never understood that England had responsibilities elsewhere and wasn't leaving by choice, never wanted to understand.  The 17th century had been very... eventful.  He'd had other colonies as well, and a civil war, and wars with France and Spain, and then there'd been the time Cromwell had locked him inside the palace at Westminster and not let him out for three years.  
  
It had been cute when he was small, but America wasn't a child anymore, and hadn't been for centuries.  
  
".. hair smells like flowers," Prussia went on, "and Austria's always nice to _her_..."  
  
England tuned him out, and waved at the bartender to bring him another drink.  
  
He could still clearly hear the indignant and overly bombastic sound of America's voice, and remember the exact degree of humiliation he'd felt when the entire room had turned and gaped at them.  More alcohol was clearly still in order.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
America didn't like to admit it, but it was possible he hadn't thought through his attempt to intervene on England's behalf and save him from himself well enough.  
  
No, a hero always had to be honest with himself.  It had been a mistake.  
  
He'd been angry at first – he'd been trying to help England out of the goodness of his heart, to keep him from being unhappy with someone who couldn't possibly appreciate him properly, and England had been completely ungrateful and had called him a child – but once he'd cooled down, he'd been uncomfortably aware that maybe he might have humiliated England in public a little.  
  
Okay, more than a little.  If America had for some reason been having sex with Prussia, he sure wouldn't have wanted all of Europe plus those non-Europe countries that were weirdly in the EU anyway to know about it.  (Greece wasn't in Europe, right?  Wasn't he part of Asia Minor or something?)  
  
Germany had yelled at him for a solid fifteen minutes yesterday, when America had tried to do the polite thing and apologize for interrupting his meeting.  He'd tried to protest that it had been important, and that he hadn't _meant_ to cause such a big disruption, but the other nation had steamrollered right over him, delivering a long, angry lecture made even angrier-sounding by the fact that half of it had been in German.  
  
Then he couldn't find England to set things straight – the _grownups_ are talking, really?  And using magic on America when he knew how much he hated it... unless he'd done it on purpose because he hated America now for embarrassing him – or Prussia to give him a good, solid punch for trifling with England's feelings that way, and when he'd asked Greece if he'd seen either of them, he'd just snapped that they weren't letting America join the EU no matter what and stomped off, all the while clutching a fluffy cat to his chest and petting it like a Bond villain.  
  
Greece was weird.  
  
America had made the further mistake of calling Canada for sympathy and to try and figure out what the best way to keep England from hating him was, and his brother had been extremely scathing on the subject of exactly how stupid and thoughtless confronting England in public had been.  
  
Canada knew a lot of cuss words other than "maple," but he usually only used them during hockey games.  Apparently, crashing an EU meeting was almost as bad as a referee missing a call or one of Canada's players failing to smash the other guy's face-mask in violently enough, because his first words to America had been "What the fuck did you do?"  even though France had apparently already called him and given him a detailed rundown.  
  
His next had been "I told you to leave it alone," followed by "But you're going to apologize, right?  Right?"  
  
It was the right thing to do, America knew that, but even so, he hesitated before actually knocking on the door to England's hotel room.  He hated apologizing to England; it was always so awkward, and England always looked so sarcastically unsurprised any time America admitted to screwing up.  Even when it didn't involve him.  
  
Nobody answered the knock, and for a moment, America was tempted to do the completely unheroic thing and slink quietly away before England realized he had been here.  Then he steeled himself and knocked again.  
  
It was seven o' clock in the morning.  Even a fellow morning person like England wouldn't be out eating breakfast yet, not when the first of today's EU meetings started at eight-forty-five and the conference center was only across the street.  
  
"England?" he called, knocking more firmly.  "Are you in there?  I brought pastry-thingies.  The ones that look like croissants with chocolate in them."  
  
The door was yanked open mid-knock.  England growled at him to sod off, and tried to slam it closed again, but America already had his foot in the way.  
  
It hurt, of course, but a hero didn't let pain stop him from doing what was right.  "Good morning," he said cheerfully, plastering on his biggest smile and trying not to look too guilty, or like he was worried about how England might respond.  "I brought you breakfast."  He held the pastries up, aware of how pathetic a peace offering they were.  
  
England made a face, and took a step backwards.  "I don't want them.  Go away."  
  
His face was sweaty, his eyes bloodshot, and his hair even more a disaster than normal.  He was still wearing blue and white flannel pajamas; once, it would have been a disconcertingly frilly nightgown, but he'd thankfully abandoned those decades ago.  
  
Ah.  America should have guessed.  England was usually a morning person, but all that went out the window when he was hung over, and after yesterday... yeah, he should have guessed.  France had probably spent the entire night buying him drinks while still laughing at his expense.  
  
It was lucky he'd come by; otherwise, England would've just huddled in bed pathetically all morning and done nothing to take care of himself, and then been even grumpier than normal at the meeting.  
  
America pushed past England and into the hotel room, depositing the pastries on top of a convenient dresser.  "You should drink some water," he said, going for one of the hotel glasses that England had, predictably, not even unwrapped from its little plastic package.  "Do you have any asprin?  Really, you ought to have Gatorade, but I didn't bring any.  But I could go and get some!"  
  
England squinted at him, rubbing at his temple with one hand.  "Why the hell are you here?"  
  
America steeled himself, managing to keep his smile in place even though it probably looked fake; England wouldn't notice.  He'd just say he was sorry, and then England would forgive him.  He'd gone about all wrong, but he'd only been trying to help.  
  
"I came to," he started.  "I mean..."  
  
England glared up at him with bloodshot eyes.  "What, humiliate me more?  Make inappropriate commentary on my personal life?  Try to 'save me from myself?'"  
  
"I didn't mean to humiliate you," he blurted out.  "I just... he was all wrong for you!  You can do better than Prussia."  
  
England sighed, his shoulders slumping.  "What," he said, with a tired calm that was almost worse than the anger had been, "makes you think that's any of your business?"  
  
"It's not, I know, but... you deserve someone who really appreciates you."  
  
"Sod off, America.  My head hurts too much to deal with you right now."  He turned away, grabbing up the glass of water America had gotten for him and starting back toward his messily unmade bed.  
  
"I'm sorry," America said, miserably, to England's back.  This wasn't going the way he'd planned at all.  He'd imagined multiple different scenarios, and in all of them, England had understood what he'd been trying to do and forgiven him.  Maybe even given him a hug and thanked him for caring about him.  "I want you to be happy.  Just... not with him."  Prussia would never bother to bring England Gatorade and aspirin when he had hangovers, or properly appreciate the way his nose wrinkled when he smiled, or the almost-invisible freckles across his cheekbones, or pretend he believed him about his stupid faeries and unicorns.  Or protect him from terrorists and ghosts, or--  
  
"I could make you happier!" he blurted out.  
  
England dropped the glass he was holding.  
  
America started forward automatically, reaching uselessly to try and catch the falling glass even though he was too far away.  It bounced on the carpet instead of breaking, splashing water all over England's pajama pants, the floor, and the edge of blanket dangling off the bed.  
  
England swore under his breath, some Old English curse that didn't even sound like their language but did sound a lot like it had the word "fuck" in it.  
  
"Sorry," America repeated.  "I'm sorry.  Let me-"  
  
England turned back to face him, raised both hands, and snarled something incomprehensible that filled the room with weird, bluish-green light.  
  
An invisible wall of force shoved at America, and what felt like tiny, invisible hands grabbed at him, pulling him backwards across the carpet and out into the hallway again.  
  
America ignored the tiny hands pinching him viciously through his clothing and took a step  forward again.  "England, wait.  If you would just listen-"  
  
The hotel room door slammed in his face, and he was alone in the hallway again.  
  
Something giggled nastily and yanked, hard, on a chunk of his hair.  
  
Stupid fake faeries.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
The remainder of the EU meeting had been miserable.   America hadn't interrupted again, thank god for small favors, having gone home after the scene in his hotel room, but the damage had already been done.  Those nations that weren't openly snickering at England's expense all felt sorry for him.  Prussia, the bastard, had just sat there, radiating smugness because everyone was paying attention to him, including Austria and Hungary.  
  
A week later, England's mood hadn't improved.  
  
Not only had England lost his temporary sex partner, he'd also lost his drinking-and-bitching-about-France partner, an outlet he sorely missed.  France kept trying to give him ~advice~ on how to either secure America's affections or let him down gently.  England kept hanging up on him.  
  
He wasn't sure whether he already had that opportunity and roundly blew it, or whether America had had no idea what he was talking about and had just blurted out something stupid and random that he didn't actually mean.  It would hardly be the first time.  
  
After several weeks of having Prussia hanging about the place, straightening picture frames and alphabetizing England's spice rack and throwing his wet rain things on top of the furniture, his house felt oddly empty.  It should have been a relief to have dry couch cushions and throw pillows again, and the ability to put the thyme away inside an empty tea caddy and not notice that he'd done so until two days later when his tea tasted funny.  
  
It wasn't that he was lonely.  England never had the opportunity to be lonely, not when his library, kitchen, and garden were continually being visited by fey of one kind of another.  
  
He wasn't lonely.  He'd just... gotten used to having company.  From one of his own kind.  He had plenty of human company during the week, between the Prime Minister and the various MPs who all thought he was some other MP's assistant, and it should have been enough.  A nation didn't need anyone but his people.  
  
England had more than that; he always had.  He had the fairies.  
  
So he wasn't lonely.  He'd just forgotten how much time he spent at loose ends when there was no one around to drag him out at odd hours to go drinking or watch a football game, or slaver all over the entire contents of the Imperial War Museum for the fourth time (half the captured weaponry in there was Prussia's anyway – why was he so enthralled?), or force him to ride the London Eye while talking the entire time about how American roller coaster rides were better.  
  
The sensible thing to do was put the entire affaire behind him and focus on something productive.  So he'd done that – he'd done work, read parliamentary proceedings, cleaned house, cooked, put the grease fire out and cleaned the kitchen again, weeded the garden, dead-headed the roses, and checked on the _Rosa × damascene/Rosa foetida_ cross for signs of black spot.  So far, it was showing a worrying tendency to take after the briar rose side of its heritage rather than the damask side when it came to disease resistance.  He'd finally managed to get the damask scent to breed true in a rich, yellow/ochre-colored bloom, but two of the three cultivars hadn't made it through last winter.  
  
Gardening had taken up an entire morning, but that was all.  Most of the hard work with roses had to be done in the spring, not midsummer.  This late in the year, most of the more traditional European strains weren't even blooming any longer, but it was still too early to harvest rose hips.  
  
The faeries liked the golden hybrid, which was always a good sign.  Then again, they liked almost any flower with a sweet scent.  
  
Most fey had a sweet tooth that rivaled America's – and he wasn't thinking about America.  
  
England swore, and gave up his attempt to untangle a skein of embroidery thread, his latest attempt to distract himself.  He didn't really need dark green thread anyway.  Or blue.  Tying knots in everything from horses' tails to human hair was a favorite trick of some of the more mischievous sorts of faeries, and his entire embroidery basket was a snarled and knotted mess.  
  
He suspected they were trying to distract him to keep him from being sad or upset, but it wasn't working.  The brown wasn't salvageable, either.  Fuck this, he'd just finished the set of white pillow covers; he didn't need colored thread for those.  
  
Stupid faeries, making his life miserable and difficult and humiliating just because they thought they knew what was best for him.  Like France, with his useless advice on how to make America his "cher amour" when England had already put an end to that possibility spectacularly – if it had ever existed in the first place.  America had been jealous and possessive for no good reason, he'd been hung-over and rightfully infuriated, and he'd thrown the first potential sign he'd seen that America wanted England back in his life as more than just an ally back in his face.  
  
Unless... America did keep pestering him online... but England was fairly certain he did that to everyone unfortunate enough to have given him their twitter, instant messenger, or email contact information.  America couldn't stand to be ignored, particularly when he suspected it was in favor of another person.  
  
Which explained everything about the disaster with Prussia, really.  That combined with America's obsession with saving people... he'd obviously built up some tragic narrative about lonely, washed-up has-been England being taken advantage of by Prussia, and seen himself as the hero charging in to save England from his own bad decisions.  
  
As if England hadn't been managing his own life just fine for centuries before America had existed.  
  
He knotted the end of the white embroidery floss, made a few careful chain stitches, and then, just as he'd finished pulling the needle through yet again and was about to pull the needle up through the end of his last stich to complete the next 'link' in the chain when the thread jerked abruptly, obviously grabbed and pulled by something.  
  
The needle jammed directly into his finger, hard and deep enough that a drop of blood welled out.  He pulled his hand away, sucking on his smarting finger, but not quickly enough to keep blood from smearing across both white thread and white fabric.   It was a nice set-up for a fairy tale but a good way to ruin an embroidered pillow-cover.  The blood would dry into a brown smear directly across the center of the design, and there would be no way to hide the stain.  
  
He could wash it out – England knew a number of ways to remove blood stains, both magical and mundane, but he wasn't sure it was worth it.  That the embroidery was worth saving.  
  
England ought to know.  He excelled at ruining things.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
The sky was just starting to turn pink in the west; another hour, and they'd have to move inside before the mosquitos got too bad.  Good thing the hamburgers were almost done.  
  
The coals, of course, were now at the exact perfect stage of glowing readiness, which always happened just when America was finished cooking, because he always got impatient and put the meat on too early.  America spurned gas grills – real men cooked with coals, or wood, or, well, some kind of open flame that didn't come from a propane tank.  Canada had pointed out twice that if he'd been using a gas grill, they wouldn't have had to wait forty minutes for the coals to be just right, which was pure hypocrisy given that Canada himself also refused to use a gas grill.  
  
"I don't see why I couldn't go swimming while you fiddled with that," Canada complained.  
  
"I told you.  It's too late in the year.  The river's full of jellyfish."  
  
"You're exaggerating; there can't be that many of them."  
  
"The Chesapeake Bay region hardly got any rain this spring, or summer.  Trust me, they're everywhere."  As he'd already learned to his cost.  Every year, America hoped he'd be lucky and went swimming in one of his Maryland or Virginia rivers anyway, and every year, he got stung.  The James, the Patuxant, the St. Mary's, the York... all of them were infested, and so was the Bay itself.   Jellyfish loved brackish water.  
  
He'd always gotten stung as a kid, too.  England had never known what to do with him when he cried, swinging between snapping at him, comforting him, and a sort of desperate panic.  
  
The river looked pretty, though.  The setting sun was casting a long trail of scarlet and gold reflections across it, and the osprey nest on the pier piling was silhouetted against it.  It was still the tail end of their nesting season, and he'd been able to watch both parents bringing fish back to the nest for their chicks.  
  
England would have liked it.  Or maybe not, given that the chicks were almost old enough to leave the nest and go out on their own, and England hated that.  
  
He wasn't thinking of England, America reminded himself.  It made him feel guilty, and stupid, and... he wasn't thinking about him.  
  
England hadn't even called him since the EU meeting, or answered America's texts, or responded when he'd IMed him.  He obviously wanted nothing to do with America, either because he was still mad at him, or because America's stupid attempt to explain himself in Belgium had creeped him out.  England had known America when he was a kid, and still seemed to think of him as one sometimes; maybe the idea of America being attracted to him disturbed him.  
  
Because he was.  Attracted to England, that is.  And he was a total idiot for not realizing it sooner, and for blurting it out incoherently at pretty much the very moment he had.  
  
The hamburgers were perfect, as they always were when America cooked them.  Done on the outside, still pink on the inside, with cheese melted all over them and grilled onion slices that he'd stuck on the back of the grill just long enough for them to go translucent.  
  
Kumajiro loomed against the side of the porch as America carried the plates of food over to the table, just to make sure the food-bearing humans didn't forget about him.  He was too polite to actually snatch the entire platter of meat from America's hands, but he could have if he wanted to, and everyone knew it.  
  
Canada ate three of them, and didn't even put cheese curds and gravy or maple syrup or anything else weird on them, which America took as a tribute to his culinary skills.  
  
He'd learned them in self-defense – it had been that, or spend his childhood eating everything either burned or half-raw.   England's complete inability to cook had never made sense to him.  If America could follow precise directions even when they were boring, England should be able to, and that was really all cooking was.  It was like chemistry experiments, only instead of explosions, you got tasty food, which was almost as good.  
  
England did his pretend-magic thing, which involved all kinds of long spells in dead languages and mixing up weird ingredients and drawing complicated symbols on things.  Compared to that, not setting the kitchen on fire by boiling all the liquid out of a pot and then burning a hole directly through the bottom of it should have been easy.  
  
"I ought to invite England over and cook for him," he said, mostly to himself.  "He needs someone to cook for him; he definitely can't do it himself."  
  
"Maybe if you invited him to something other than a Fourth of July cookout, he'd come.'  
  
"No he wouldn't.  He hates me.  He thinks I'm stupid and annoying, and I humiliated him in front of France and Germany and he's never going to forgive me, ever."  
  
"Did you apologize?"  
  
"Yes!  He kicked me out of his hotel room and slammed the door on me.  And I told him I would be better for him than Prussia was, and he didn't even say anything back."  
  
"You would be... are you serious?  You actually made a move on England."  
  
"And he completely shot me down. Because he hates me now."  
  
"I always thought you kind of had a crush on him, but then you didn't do anything about it for so long that I thought you'd maybe outgrown it.  I know you hate it when he pays attention to anyone else, but I thought that was just you being you."  
  
"I don't have a crush on him.  I just want him to be happy and taken care of and with someone who understands and appreciates him, and also to not date anyone else who isn't me.  And I want him to respect me and like me and-"  
  
"The food was just a bribe to get me here so I'd listen to you whine about England, wasn't it?"  
  
It hadn't actually been, but... "Yeah.  But you already ate, so now you owe me."  
  
"Someday, I'm going to have a torrid affair with someone and tell you all about it in even more detail than France and never, ever shut up and repeat myself over and over and over, and you'll have to listen and it will be karma in action."  
  
It was all right for Canada to mock.  He hadn't unintentionally ruined the life of the one nation he most wanted to respect and like him.  "This isn't funny, _Canadia_.  You didn't see him.  He was really, really mad, and France was laughing like a hyena, and Prussia was just lounging back in his chair and smirking like the jerk he is."  America flung his arm out for emphasis and then grabbed at his water glass to keep it from falling over.  Canada started to say something, probably 'I told you so,' or 'I don't care,' but America was off and running now.  England hated him, he had ruined everything forever, he had only just realized how he felt about him and now it was too late, did he mention England hated him.  "Why did I have to crash the EU meeting like that?" he finished.  "I should have known England would be angry.  Why didn't you stop me, Canada?"  
  
"I told you it was a bad idea and to leave England alone," Canada protested.  He'd finished eating, and was now drawing little designs in the condensation from his water glass.  
  
"What? When?  You never said that."  Or maybe he had, but he obviously hadn't said it with much conviction, or America would have listened.  And now...  Even if Prussia was a smug bastard who was probably just using England for sex – which probably implied that England was good at it, and no, no, that was a bad chain of though.  Even if Prussia was just using England, maybe England had been enjoying it.  Maybe England actually liked Prussia despite the whole communist-Nazi thing and his obnoxious laugh.  
  
America felt a little sick, suddenly, thinking of England alone in his hotel room, miserable and hung-over – when he'd probably been drinking in the first place because America had made him upset – and then alone in his messy, clutter-filled house, shut up with all his old books, pretending he wasn't lonely.  
  
"I shouldn't have said anything," he said, pushing his plate away.  He didn't even want desert – the guilty lump in his throat was too tight.  "England will be all lonely and alone now that I've ruined his thing with Prussia.  Even if he didn't really love him, he shouldn't have nobody.  And France doesn't count," he added, before Canada could bring him up.  "You know he doesn't." Prussia had that weird threesome thing going on with Hungary and Austria, so it wouldn't have lasted forever.  Why couldn't he have just waited for England's fling with him to run its course?  
  
On the other hand, if England had had long enough to have really gotten serious about things with Prussia, he would have been even more miserable when they ended.  And England would have gotten serious about eventually, even if it had started as just a fling.  England got attached to people, and didn't want to let them go.  
  
Canada raised his eyebrows, then ruined the Mr. Spock impression by pushing his glasses back up his nose.  "Since when do you think relationships have to be all about love?"  
  
They didn't, of course; America wasn't naïve, and Israel had offered that one time, and he might, once, have spent a few shameful and embarrassing minutes with Russia in a UN supply closet, but, "I know they don't have to be, but England's should be!  He's a total romantic at heart.  He wouldn't really be happy with anything less."  
  
Canada actually smiled.  "Wow, you are gone on him, aren't you?"  
  
America's face and ears went hot.  "He still thinks of me as a kid, though.  An annoying, stupid kid."  Whereas England, when he wasn't angry and shouting, was always so composed and mature.  He had this way of looking at America like he could see straight through him, and then America always ended up saying the wrong thing.  
  
"He hasn't thought of you as his colony in years.  He thinks you're an annoying, stupid adult."  
  
America buried his flaming face in his hands, his eyes feeling hot.  He wasn't going to _cry_.  That would be stupid and childish and selfish, when England was the one who had actual reasons to be upset. "You suck."  
  
"You suck more," Canada informed him.  
  
America lowered his hands and glared at his brother through his smudged glasses. "Do not."  
  
"You have the worst health care system in the entire world and I'm already sick of hearing about your stupid presidential election."  
  
A huge, cold nose pressed itself against the back of America's neck, snuffling at his hair, and he reached back to push Kumajiro away.  "It's important!  I could've ended up with "President Sanatorum" as a boss!  
  
Canada snickered, one hand over his mouth.  It was the sort of almost-girly gesture that made people mistakenly assume he was shy.  He'd probably picked it up from France.  
  
"Do you know what his name means on the internet?"  It was a rhetorical question; of course Canada knew, or he wouldn't have laughed.  "Everyone would've made fun of me!"  
  
Canada smiled innocently at him, his head tilted to one side and that one curly bit of hair that never stayed in place flopping into his eyes.  "We already make fun of you," he said, sweetly.  
  
Kumajiro snuffled at America again, edging forward and leaning against him in that vaguely menacing way that thousand-pound polar bears were so good at.   America gave up and slid his plate and the remains of his last hamburger over to the edge of the table.  It was gone in one giant bite.  
  
"You're a terrible brother," he said.  "You're supposed to be helping me feel better.  Come on, you're in the British Commonwealth.  England talks to you about things.  What has he been saying about me?"  He sounded whiney, he knew, but he couldn't help it.  
  
Canada shrugged, handing his own plate to Kumajiro.  "He hasn't been saying anything.  England doesn't talk about his feelings unless he's drunk, you know that."  
  
"You could ask him," America said, trying on his best hopeful and pathetic face.  
  
"No.  I couldn't."  
  
It had been worth a try.  
  
The mosquitoes were out now.  America slapped at one that had landed on the patio table, careful not to hit too hard and crack the glass top.  It was time to head inside.  In a few minutes, it would be too dark to watch the ospreys anymore.  "Well, at least you're still being nicer than Tony.  He just told me I was a fucking moron and to shut the hell up about the goddamn limey."  In those exact words, in fact.  Then he'd gone back to kicking America's ass at Gears of War.  
  
"That's what's nice about your alien friend – he says what everybody else is thinking, but is too polite to actually say."  
  
America sighed, not even angry this time, because it was true.  "I know I'm a moron. 'I could do better,'" he mimicked.  "What a stupid thing to say.  I should have told him that I cared about him and wanted him to be happy the way he deserved to be.  And apologized more.  I could have groveled.  He always likes it when people grovel to him."  
  
Canada reached up and back to rub at Kumajiro's neck.  The polar bear snorted, surprised for a moment the way he always was when Canada petted him, then licked the side of Canada's face, knocking his glasses askew.  
  
Canada wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand, brushing off bear saliva and white fur.  "Or you could just tell him you love him."  
  
America thought of England's face at the EU meeting, and the cold menace in his voice as he'd ordered America out, and then the tired slump of his shoulders the next morning in his hotel room.  "I think I might have to grovel first."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
This meeting was going so much better than the last one.   Several hours of discussion, powerpoint presentations, and shouting, and no one had so much as mentioned England's sex life yet.  Or his – at the moment – complete lack thereof.  
  
Not that he actually minded.  England had been much too busy over the past couple of weeks to be lonely or depressed.  Between the mad last minute scramble to get everything in order for the Olympics and deal with all the problems that kept popping up, and the rest of his boss's business, he'd barely had time to think about America.  Or to spend time with Prussia, despite the other nation's cheerful invitations to come and go clubbing with him and Hungary or watch football with him and Austria, which, really, would just have been rubbing salt in the wound.  
  
He was pretty sure Austria and Hungary wouldn't have appreciated his attendance, anyway.  
  
Really, he shouldn't have even come today, because the Olympics were now only a week away and there were probably a half-dozen minor disasters occurring in London during his absence, but unlike some nations, England kept his obligations and never skipped world meetings.  And given that today's meeting was actually _about_ the Olympics...  
  
China had smugly asked him how his opening ceremony preparations were coming along, and England had pretended that the leftover bits of pirate in him were not thrilled at the opportunity for internationally sanctioned showing off.   Russia had spent the whole morning being sullen over the standard accusations that his Olympic judges were all biased.  Greece was actually awake and paying attention, a near-miracle only the Olympics could achieve.  
  
America, of course, had spent the first twenty minutes of the meeting loudly bragging that he was going to win more medals than anyone else.  He was already wearing his Team USA jacket, which featured a prominently placed Nike swoosh; if anything, England was surprised he hadn't started wearing it back in July.  He'd gotten quieter, though, as the morning wore on.  
  
It wasn't as if England had been watching him that closely, but most of the time, America unintentionally dominated every discussion he took part in, through a combination of pure enthusiasm and his tendency to blithely talk over other people.  When he was silent, it was impossible not to notice.  
  
The morning half of the meeting had finally wrapped up, and they were about to break for lunch, largely because Germany had had to go seethe quietly for a while after the inevitable discussion of whether they were really not going to have a moment of silence for anniversary of the Munich bombings during the opening ceremonies.  Israel had brought up the importance of security in case someone decided to mark the occasion with another bomb, and things briefly turned into a free-for-all, capped off with America's unhelpful declaration that anyone who didn't want to have a moment of silence at the opening ceremonies for dead civilian athletes should just, like, get thrown out of the Olympics next time, or something.  
  
It was a good thing Italy had been present.  Normally, he contributed little outside of the occasional piece of stunning and vaguely pornographic art on the meeting room's white board, but he was very, very good at distracting Germany from, well, pretty much anything, bad moods included.  
  
England frowned down at his blackberry – full of un-opened emails – and briefcase full of Olympic-related documents, last-minute proposals, and complaints.  Lunch was a luxury he didn't have time for at the moment; a cup of tea would have to suffice, he decided.  He'd go make himself one, and then come back here and slog through some of his over-stuff inbox.  
  
The side of his face and neck seemed to tingle, as if someone were staring at him, and then he heard a faint, nervous cough from the doorway.  
  
America was hovering just inside the room, fidgeting with the zipper of his red, white, and blue Nike jacket.  
  
"Can I help you, America?" England asked, pointedly.  
  
America jumped just a little, looking faintly guilty.  "I, um, needtotalktoyou."  It came out in a rushed, barely-understandable mumble.  "But, but if now isn't good, we can totally talk later!"  
  
England sighed and abandoned both his briefcase and the hope of tea.  He might as well get whatever it was over with.  He hadn't spoken to America since the ill-fated EU meeting, and now... he tried not to stare at him this morning, tried not to catch America's eye and earn himself either another earnest apology or a too-perceptive question about why he kept staring.  America wasn't stupid, for all that he occasionally liked to pretend that he was; if it hadn't been for his hangover and the fact that he'd still been angry at him, England would have jumped on America's half-hearted and almost certainly not serious declaration that he could be a better lover than Prussia like a starving dog on a bone.  And if he had, America would have backpeddled and retracted the offer and clumsily tried to explain that he had no romantic or sexual interest whatsoever in England but um, that totally didn't mean England wasn't, like, probably really hot and stuff if you were into short nations, or giant eyebrows, or whatever, so he shouldn't feel bad.  
  
If they never talked about it, then eventually, England would have got over this pointless and delusional bit of hope he kept feeling, and have been able to treat America normally again, and then they could've both put it behind them forever.  
  
America could never simply simply let things alone.  
  
"What about?" England asked.  Maybe it was about putting a giant McDonald sign inside one of the Olympic stadiums, or scheduling all the most high profile events in the middle of the night so that they could be broadcast live during American prime time television hours.  Or-  
  
"I really am sorry about last month.  I didn't think.  I should have-"  
  
"You don't have to apologize, America," England said tiredly.  "I've gotten over it."  
  
America's jaw firmed, and he shook his head, that one stray cowlick of hair that never lay flat falling in front his glasses.  "No you haven't, you never get over anything, and I just..."  He waved his hands, as if trying to grab for the correct words, and blurted out.  "England, I really am sorry, please don't hate me anymore!"  
  
It would be so much easier if he'd ever actually hated America.  "I don't hate you, America."  
  
"I know, but... I want us to be friends again."  America stared at him earnestly, blue eyes huge and sincere behind smudged lenses.  Blond as he was, his eyelashes were still dark instead of near-invisibly pale like Prussia's.  They were ridiculously long.  "I really... I care about you, England. I don't want you to be by yourself.  I'm sorry I ruined things for you with Prussia.  I was being stupid and jealous."  
  
It was obvious that he really was sorry, and England felt a ridiculous desire to comfort America and tell him that it was okay, just to see him smile that obnoxiously wide grin again instead of standing there looking guilty and anxious.  "I've always been by myself."  And America hadn't precisely ruined things with Prussia.  Those once-or-twice a century hook-ups never lasted long, though they were generally enjoyable while they were happening.  It was the public humiliation and America butting in to make it all about him like he always did with no regard for what England actually wanted that he minded.  
  
"You don't have to be," America said quietly.  
  
Was this going to be another painful attempt at propositioning England?  Why did fate keep mocking him this way? "You only think you want to be with me because you don't want me to be with anyone else, because you can't stand it when people aren't paying attention to you."  It was crueler than America really deserved, but one always needed to be direct with him.  
  
"That's not true," America protested, looking honestly hurt.  "Well, okay, the part about wanting you to pay attention to me is true, but if you don't want..." he  hesitated, "if you aren't interested in me that way, couldn't we just be friends again?"  He took a half-step forward, starting to reach for England's hands, then pulled himself back before England had a chance to flinch away.  "I miss when we were friends.  It took us ages before we even had that, and we barely talk to each other these days, and... I want to cook dinner for you, and listen to you talk about your imaginary magic, and argue about books and socialism with you, and be more than just another ex-colony and ally."  
  
He trailed off, and England was left groping for how to answer, painfully conscious of America's eyes on him.  The other nation was staring intently at him, as if England were the only thing in the world that mattered.  He hadn't looked at England that way since... he'd never looked at him that way.  Before his revolution, America had always stared _up_ at him, not down at him with pleading eyes and a hopeful little half-smile.  
  
If America wanted to be friends, well, it wasn't everything England wanted, but it was much better than nothing.  "I'd like that,' he admitted, after a long, painful silence.  He felt his face and neck going red.  "I've... missed you, as well."  
  
America's face lit up like a sunrise, and then he was flinging his arms around England and hugging him with zero regard for his strength and the integrity of England's ribs, and really, it was entirely unfair.  America was warm to the touch, almost hot, and solid with muscle, and England's nose was pressed into the hollow just above his collarbone.  He could smell America's aftershave, something spicy and clean, and if he shifted just a little-  
  
Abruptly, America let go and stepped back, a little awkwardly.  
  
Still half-dazed, England almost moved after him, and then Canada's voice sounded quite clearly from behind him.  
  
"Oh, good."  
  
Where had he come from?  England had been facing the doorway the entire time, and he'd been sure everyone else had already left the room.  
  
"You told him how you feel," Canada said.  "Uh, congratulations, I guess?"  
  
England blinked at him.  "Congratulations on what?"  
  
Canada looked away, shrugging a little, while America made flaily 'shut up' hand gestures at him that he obviously thought England couldn't see.  "You didn't tell him, did you?"  He sounded somewhere between disappointed and embarrassed.  
  
England's stomach started to sink.  "Tell me what?"  
  
Canada gave him a nervous smile.  "Nevermind.  I, eh, I think Cuba needs to talk to me.  I can see him waiving at me.  By."  He skirted around America and left the room, moving a little too quickly for the exit to be innocent.  
  
England folded his arms across his chest, trying to ignore the way his stomach had hollowed out.  He should have known reconciling wouldn't be this straightforward.  Nothing between nations ever was.  America had avoided telling him something, something important, going by Canada's swift exit, and now his surprisingly sweet apology was about to be undone.  "Tell me what?"  
  
America turned red from his hairline to his collar.  "That I'm sorry and I love you?" His voice cracked on the final word, and he went, if possible, even redder.  "But, um, it's okay for us to just be friends!" he added, with too much enthusiasm for it to be entirely honest.  "It's great!  That's the important part anyway."  
  
That... he...  That offer in the hotel room had been real?   It was entirely too good to be true, and he knew he was being a fool who was about to regret his actions deeply, but some wild remnant of the pirate he'd once been had taken hold of him.  Once, England had grabbed for what he wanted and damned the consequences, and he did so again now.  
  
The worst that could happen, he thought, as he grabbed America's shoulders and pulled the other nation to him, was public humiliation and America rejecting him, and he had been there and done that already.  
  
England stretched up on tiptoe, pulled America down by his jacket collar, and crushed America's mouth to his.  
  
America had stopped babbling, he thought, a moment later, as one big hand spread across the small of his back and the other cupped the back of his head.  It was ever better than magic.  
  
America opened his mouth and nearly sucked England's tongue in, pulling England against the length of his body.  Prussia would have bitten.  France would have already had his hand down England's pants.  This was sweeter, and it didn't matter that America was clearly less practiced at kissing.  He made up for it by being very, very enthusiastic.  
  
The fact that America wasn't skilled somehow made it even hotter, fired that part of England that he usually tried to bury these days that had always wanted to make things his own.  He should have done this years ago, he'd been such an idiot not to see, to never speak up.  
  
America was pressing his forehead against England's now, his eyes closed, his expression blissful, as if someone had just given him the best present in the world.  
  
In the background somewhere, he could hear France saying something about the beauty of _"l'amour."_ England didn't even bother to flip him off.  
  


~End~


End file.
